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But now, it appears the plant reached Europe earlier than that. Radiocarbon dating of the bone of one of the individuals buried with those who tested positive for cocaine showed that they lived about 350 years ago.
“These laboratory analyses not only backdate the arrival of the Erythroxylum spp. by almost two centuries in Europe, but also demonstrate that some Milanese citizens came into contact with this New World plant and chewed or brewed its leaves as tea,” study lead author Gaia Giordano, a doctoral student in archaeotoxicology at the University of Milan, told Live Science in an email.
Hospital records at Ospedale Maggiore don’t mention cocaine as a treatment until the 19th century, so it’s likely that these two individuals had sourced coca leaves by themselves, the researchers said. The presence of cocaine in the brain tissue hints that the cocaine intake happened when the users were close to death. Interestingly, one of the coca users also lived with tertiary syphilis and was identified as an opium user in a 2023 study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Giordano thinks that these two individuals used coca leaves either for recreation or self-medication. “It may have been administered as part of a medical remedy by healers not practicing in the hospital,” she said.
As the Duchy of Milan was under Spanish rule in the 17th century and was one of the destinations of sea trade from the Americas, it’s possible that some coca plants reached Milan unbeknown to the authorities. In the centuries since, cocaine has spread across the world, becoming “a widespread substance of abuse for its psychoactive properties, as well as the cause of 1/5 of overdose deaths across the world in the 20th century,” the authors wrote in the study.
Source link : https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/cocaine-found-in-mummified-brains-reveal-that-new-world-drug-came-to-italy-200-years-earlier-than-thought
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Publish date : 2024-09-19 07:00:00
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